Kamp Student Radio

It is getting annoying.

On Wednesday, March 4, HBO released the first teaser trailer for the upcoming DC Universe TV series, Lanterns. The series follows a former U.S. Marine Corps sniper turned architect John Stewart (Aaron Pierre) being trained by former U.S. Air Force test pilot and veteran of the Green Lantern Corps Hal Jordan (Kyle Chandler) to be his replacement as the new wielder of his Green Lantern ring.

Personally, I am excited for the direction that is being taken with this show. It is a grounded murder mystery set in the American Heartland, or for those who don’t understand, the U.S. state of Nebraska, clearly inspired by True Detective, which is arguably one of the greatest TV shows of all time. But there is a loud minority of fans who have gone to various social media platforms like Twitter/X, YouTube and Instagram to express their disdain for this show as a result of the show’s teaser.

Some examples of people’s complaints are that the show is not “green” enough, the suit’s design (which I don’t really like myself, but that’s by the way), the grounded, gritty nature of the show, and of course, we have not seen them go to space yet and the Green Lantern Corps are intergalactic space cops.

While some of the complaints are understandable, others are simply stupid. The complaint that it is set on Earth is invalid because we have to remember that this is the origin story of John Stewart, who is a HUMAN from EARTH. Another particularly annoying critique was about Hal not knowing returning character Guy Gardner (Nathan Fillion), who previously appeared in 2025’s Superman, where he was a member of the “Justice Gang”. Keep in mind that Hal is a veteran at this point, so it is likely that either he hates Guy or they haven’t even met yet because it is also possible that Hal has been in space for so long.

I’m sure you all remember the CGI slop that was the 2011 Green Lantern movie starring Ryan Reynolds. But in case you need some memory refreshing, that was a somewhat space opera; I say somewhat because most of it was set in Coast City on Earth than in space. It is very likely that the creators of Lanterns probably decided to take a different approach just because, let’s face it, that movie was ambitious, but it was horrible and to add insult to injury, it flopped financially! I thought the world agreed that it was bad, but from the LITTLE we have seen from this show, maybe only parts of the first episode, people are already saying that the 2011 slop fest was “not that bad”.

Now, it is time to address those people who are so obsessed with comic accuracy. It seems to me that these people that comic accuracy and nostalgia bait are more important than creating a story of quality. It is good to stay true to the source material for physical appearances of characters, but the story must come first. I would go even further to argue that those people who are obsessed with comic accuracy have never really picked up a comic and read it, because if you have, you would know that John Stewart’s first-ever comic appearance (Green Lantern #87; December 1971) was set on Earth. You would also see that it portrays the two characters well. Hal is cocky, reckless and just wants to manifest a boxing glove and hit things, thus making his test pilot background make sense. John, on the other hand, is calm and calculated, with his constructs typically being more creative and tactical, nodding to his Marine Corps and architect careers. You would also know this if you read comics like you claim to.

When James Gunn first talked about his vision for the first chapter of the DCU in January 2023, it was implied that it was going to be a connected universe with different projects of different tones. Everyone seemed to be on board with it (minus the Snyder bros. of course). But now that we are getting the promised story, we are complaining.

Another problem with this goes without saying. The show is not even out yet. I have seen a myriad of think pieces on YouTube about why the show is “bad” or is “in trouble”. I don’t understand why we are looking for problems.

This sounds all too familiar. Something similar happened when Marvel Animation’s Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man was about to be released. We had a lot of people showing hate towards it due to the animation style, reviving The Spectacular Spider-Man for nostalgia’s sake and Marvel’s bad situation at the time. However, people started to praise it when it came out so much that they forgot they swore it off as being bad; people also spread hate for the Peacemaker season 2 finale initially, but we look back at it fondly now. Another example of this apart from film and television is in music; Afroswing superstar Asake changed up his style on his third studio album, Lungu Boy in 2024. Of course, people were showing a lot of hate towards it when it’s promotional single, “Active (feat. Travis Scott)” was released, as it was much different from his earlier works. Now, many people regard it as one of, if not his best album.